Monday, November 12, 2012

"Honey! I'm home!" Ron
shouted as he came down the stairs, clutching a plastic bag and big
red cup of something.

"Jesus, dude!" I shouted
back, startled. "You scared me! What time is it?"

"I'm not sure. Late. And sorry,
that wasn't my intention." Ron was slurring ever so slightly.

"You went across the street,
didn't you?" I said.

"I did, I did. That's a hell of a
crew over there, y'know? Plenty of booze but not a lot of women."

"Did you see Sarah?"

"Nope. She was around, though. One
of those big guys said she was out back doing something with sheet
metal and a welding torch. Oh, here's the extension cords." Ron
struggled awkwardly with his cup and the bag. "I got two long
ones since I figure we'd better run the heater off the kitchen
circuit rather than risk another blackout."

"Good idea."

"Oh, and here's a drink for you,"
he said, handing me the cup. "It's got vodka in it."

Vodka and cherry Kool-Aid, as it turned
out. A little sweet, but not bad for a freebie.

Ron cocked his head and looked around
the basement. "What's that hissing noise?"

"Oh, Jesus, The still! Ron, do me
a favor and go plug in those extension cords." I rushed over to
see what was happening.

With a slight whistle, steam emerged
from the nozzle of the condensing unit and a few drops of clear
liquid fell to the floor. I noted a distinctly chemical smell,
vaguely alcohol-like. "Bottle," I muttered to myself.
"Funnel." I grabbed a plastic gallon milk jug and a
stainless steel funnel, placed them under the condenser, and started
collecting what old-time moonshiners called the foreshots.

"Hey, Ron!" I shouted. "It's
working! We've got alcohol!"

Ron literally galloped down the steps,
almost tripping in the process, and stood beside me, an expression of
awe on his face.

"I smell it," he said.

"Me, too." We stared at the
steaming still.

"We made that," Ron said.

"I know."

"I thought it would come out
faster," Ron said.

"Well, so did I... oh, shit.
Cooling water. We need cooling water." I checked the condenser
hose connections, grabbed for the faucet, and turned it on full
force.

THRUMUMUMUMUMUMUMSHREEEEEEEEEE!

"Oh,
damn it. Not again. Please, not again," I said. "This is so
not the time." I looked at Ron. "We cannot catch a damn
break this evening."

The
pipes shuddered and groaned as if possessed, but this time the noise
stopped after a only a couple of minutes and, to my surprise, mostly
clear water flowed freely from the condenser's cooling jacket.

"Maybe
our luck is changing," Ron said.

Not
surprisingly, two working heaters and a properly adjusted condenser
made a huge difference in performance. I noted a steady but not
alarming rise in the still's temperature while Ron stared,
transfixed, at the filling milk jug.

"I've
got to have a taste," he said.

"Uh,
that's not a particularly good idea." I checked the thermometer.
"At this temperature, what's coming off now is mostly methanol,
you know, wood alcohol, the stuff that makes you go blind and die.
There's some other nasty crap in there, too, so you definitely don't
want to drink it."

"Well,
shit. Is that normal?"

"Yeah,
it just happens to be what distills off first, at least that's what
all the books and websites say, and it's a good thing it does or the
whole batch would be poison. The good stuff should be coming in just
a few minutes."

"How
will we know?"

"Alcohol
boils at 173 degrees Fahrenheit, so once we hit that, we'll start
collecting for real."

I
stood there watching the thermometer while Ron paced the basement,
stopping every now and then to look at me and the still. You'd have
thought he was expecting a baby, the way he was acting, and maybe, in
a sense, he was. This was all his idea to begin with, his money
funding the project, and though I hadn't kept close tabs on our
expenses, Ron's bank account had to be considerably drained. The poor
guy had reasons to be anxious.

"I
don't know. Wait a minute. Let's not panic." I checked the
thermometer again, then tapped it a couple of times.

"It's
not going to blow up, is it?" Ron said.

"No,
it's okay, we're good. It's holding steady at 173 degrees. Let's
switch containers." I moved the first jug out of the way and
positioned a second one just in time to capture a steady flow of
clear liquid.

"That's
what we're after," I said, sticking my finger into the stream
and taking a little taste. It was hot and raw and unrefined with just
a hint of paint thinner, but beneath that was a certain grainy
sweetness.

It
tasted like whiskey.

Not
great whiskey, not something you'd serve to friends or mix drinks
with, unaged, unmellowed, and unblended as it was, but it definitely
smelled like whiskey, tasted like whiskey, and burned like whiskey.

"Well?"
Ron said. "Can I try it?"

"Have
at it, but try and keep your expectations low. It isn't smooth and
it's not a consumer-grade product by any stretch of the imagination.
It needs to rest for about three to five years in a charred oak
barrel."

Ron
found my cup of Kool-Aid and vodka, dumped the remnants into the
sink, rinsed it with the condenser cooling jacket outflow, snagged a
sample from the still, and took a cautious sip.

"Huh.
You're right. It's not great, but it is whiskey. Not rum, not
vodka, not Everclear, but whiskey." Ron smiled. "I
kind of like it," he said, taking another sip and rolling it
around on his tongue. "It needs some ice cubes and soda or
something to get rid of that solvent taste, but yeah, I can drink
this."

"Well,
we're not going to be winning a blue ribbon award any time soon, but
for a first attempt, I think we've done pretty well. In fact, we did
far better than I had any right to imagine, given the night we've
had."

The
milk jug was almost full, so I switched it out for another, snagging
another taste in the process. Yes, it still tasted like whiskey.

"So
how many gallons are we going to get," Ron asked.

"I
don't know. I'm happy to get one, but with ten gallons of mash, I
don't know. Maybe two, possibly three." I checked the
thermometer again. "Temperature's still holding. That's a good
sign."

"Two
gallons doesn't sound like very much."

"It
isn't, but remember, this is just a test run. I deliberately kept it
small so we could iron out any problems before committing to
distilling any significant volume, and man, you saw what it was like
earlier this evening."

"A
veritable shit storm," Ron said.

"We'll
do better with our next run."

"I
sure hope so. Oh, I was wondering, how will we know when it's done?"

"Well,
I don't want the still to run dry for a couple of reason. One, we'll
never get it clean if we do, and two, eventually we'll have distilled
out all the drinkable alcohol and start getting some seriously crappy
stuff again. Fusel oils and such. We're going to have to sample it at
regular intervals and stop when it starts to taste bad."

"I
see no problem there." Ron grinned.

I
laughed. "Really, I don't, either. Just take it easy, okay?
Getting sloshed now could be an unmitigated disaster."

"Moderation
is my middle name."

"I
thought you were the one always quoting Robert Heinlein: 'Moderation
is for monks.'"

"Oh,
whatever. I was probably drunk."

We
filled the second jug and started on a third.

"This
is where we have to be extra careful," I said, "or we could
end up contaminating our batch with what real moonshiners called 'the
tails' and the stuff will taste nasty. According to the books, this
is going to happen when the thermometer reaches about 205 degrees
Fahrenheit, but I don't trust that, which is why we're going to do
taste tests. If it starts going bad or we hit 200 degrees, whatever
comes first, we shut down."

We
sat in companionable, boozy silence for a while, listening to the
still hiss and the water run, taking occasional sips of our very
first batch of home brewed whiskey whenever it seemed appropriate.

"Do
you hear something dripping?" Ron asked.

"Actually,
I do. What is that?"

"I'm
not sure."

Suddenly,
the sump pump in the corner roared to life.

"Oh,
shit," Ron said. "The sink's overflowing."

"Crap.
Oh, man, there's water all over the place. Unplug the still."

I
meant for Ron to pull the extension cords from their respective
outlets. Instead, he unplugged the heaters and dropped the extension
cords into the growing pool of water. Sparks flew, there was a loud
bang, and the basement was immediately plunged into darkness. Again.

"Where's
the flashlight?"

"On
the work bench."

"Where's
the work bench?"

"Behind
you. Be careful not to..."

There
was a soggy thump as Ron slipped and fell into a puddle of water.

"Damn
it..."

"You
okay?" I was feeling my way to the sink, being very careful not
to grab a double handful of hot still in the process. Tepid water
filled my shoes as I turned off the tap.

"Yeah,"
Ron said. "Where's that damn flashlight? Oh, got it."

"If
you're planning on changing the fuse again, I'd make sure the
extension cords were out of the water first."

"Good
point."

I
heard a slithering noise as Ron dragged the cords across the floor
and placed them on the work bench.

"We've
got one fuse left," Ron said.

"Let's
hope that's all we need, at least for tonight."

Ron
fumbled with the fuse box for a minute or so until the lights came
back on.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

It was early evening and we were in the
basement, surrounded by several vats of fermenting mash, most of them
bubbling and roiling like some kind of turbo-charged witch's brew.

"It's just bottled water, sugar,
corn, rye, barley, malt, and some of that super-yeast we got at the
wine-making store. I kind of like it."

"You would," Ron said,
breathing through his mouth. "You like the smell of unleaded
gasoline."

"And other petroleum distillates.
Let's not leave anything out."

"So where do we stand? I'm getting
tired of waiting around with my thumb up my ass. I wanna make some
booze."

"Well..." I looked around,
did some quick mental calculations, and walked over to one of the
plastic buckets. "It's been five days and batch number one
should be just about ready. According to the instructions, once the
bubbling stops and the yeast settles out, we should have something on
the order of thirty per cent alcohol."

"Damn. Hot damn! And that's before
we even run it through the still. What are we going to get
afterwards?"

"That's a good question and the
answer is, I have no idea. We'll just have to run it and see what
happens."

"Then what are we waiting for?"

"Nothing, I guess. Help me lift
this thing onto the work bench. Gently. Try not to disturb the
sediment."

Ten gallons doesn't sound like much,
but it translates to over eighty pounds of awkward, dead weight.
Since neither one of us had any real upper body strength, there was a
certain amount of grunting and groaning involved as we hoisted the
bucket onto the bench.

"Jesus God, it smells even worse
close up," Ron said.

"It's no bouquet of roses, I'll
admit. Now, where's that Tygon tubing? I'm going to siphon it into
the still."

Ron nodded, moved over to the still,
and started trying to pry off the head assembly.

"Damn, that's tight. Give me a
hand, will ya?"

Ron wasn't kidding. The head was
on tight. We tried pulling, then twisting, then pulling again and
still the head resisted.

"Bang on it with something,"
Ron said.

I grabbed a rubber mallet off the work
bench and whacked the join a couple of times.

"Okay," I said. "That
should do it."

It didn't.

I whacked it a few more times, then Ron
and I grabbed the head assembly as tightly as we could, twisting and
pulling at the same time. Nothing happened for a few seconds, then
there was a sudden screeching of metal and the head came free.

"That's one hell of a flange. We
should put some grease on that or something," Ron said.

"Yeah, that's a good idea... wait,
is that a dead mouse?"

Ron peered into the base of the still.
"Yep. Two of 'em. Dead and mummified." He dumped them out
onto the floor.

"Oh, gross." I took the base
from Ron, carried it over to the sink, and turned on the faucet full
force.

"John, don't!"

The
room filled with a deafening THRUMUMUMUMUMUMUMSHREEEEEEEEEE as
something resembling liquid sewage spewed and sputtered from the tap.

"Oh,
damn it all to hell" I scrambled to turn off the tap.

"Let
it flow," Ron yelled. "The one thing we haven't tried is
flushing the pipes until they run clear. Leave it alone for a
minute."

The
pipes pounded and vibrated in a manic symphony of demonic noise that
would have made Einsturzende Neubauten envious, but the sputtering
water slowly changed from sewage-colored to muddy. A minute passed.
Then two. Then three. A sulfurous odor filled the basement.

"It's
not getting better," I yelled at Ron.

"I
know," Ron yelled back. "Maybe we should..."

And
suddenly, miraculously, the pipes stopped banging and the water
flowed in a steady stream.

"Praise
Jesus," Ron said.

"Hail
Satan," I said.

I
rinsed the copper base of the still, scoured it with sanitizer,
rinsed it some more, then carried it back to its place near the work
bench.

"Let's
try again," I said. "Tygon, please."

I
cut off a convenient length of tubing, placed one end just beneath
the surface of the liquid in the bucket and starting sucking on the
other end as hard as I could, trying to start a siphon. I got one,
alright, and a mouthful of nasty-tasting ferment in the process.
Quickly, I dropped my end of the tube into the still base and then
proceeded to retch.

"Oh,
gawd, that's foul," I said, spitting onto the floor. "But
judging from the taste, there's alcohol in there." I spit again.
"Do we have anything to drink that doesn't come out of the
faucet?"

"We've
got some Diet Pepsi and some orange juice," Ron said. "I
could make a pot of coffee."

"No,
I don't want to wait for coffee. It tastes like the entire Russian
Army just held field maneuvers in their muddy boots on my tongue.
I'll be right back." I dashed up the stairs and grabbed an
orange juice for me and a Diet Pepsi for Ron.

Somewhere
out front of our apartment someone was playing a sound system at top
volume. I looked out the front door.

Vintage
rockabilly was playing and a slew of biker types, both male and
female, emanated from the anarchists' collective and began dancing in
the front yard, drinking from forty ounce bottles of malt liquor,
cavorting, and just having a good time in general. There were the
occasional sounds of breaking glass, high-pitched female laughter,
and good-natured drunken revelry.

Huh,
I thought. Sarah never said anything about having a party. I
wonder why we weren't invited? Oh, it doesn't matter. We're working.

I
went back to the basement.

"Jesus,
John," Ron said. "Is there any faster way to fill this
thing?"

The
bucket was emptying, but oh so slowly. "Guess I should have
gotten some wider diameter tubing. I'll add that to my list."

We
waited. And waited. And waited some more. Finally, after about twenty
minutes, most of the cloudy liquid slop from the bucket was in the
still, leaving only a slimy mass of dead yeast and fermented grain.

"Now
can we run the still? Ron asked

"Now
we can run the still," I said, replacing the head assembly. "All
we have to do is plug it in, hook up water to the condenser, and let
'er rip."

"Uh,
problem."

"What?"

"Well,
as I see it, the electrical outlets are over here and the sink
is way over there where there are no electrical outlets."

"Oh,"
I said.

"We're
going to need a couple of long extension cords or some really long
hoses with fittings."

"Do
we have any extension cords?"

"I've
got one in the train room," Ron said.

"We're
going to need two. Two heaters, two cords."

"Okay,"
Ron said. "How about a really long cord with a power strip on
one end."

"Ron,
you're a mad genius! Go get it and I'll move the still closer to the
sink."

I
could tell by the way Ron ran up the basement steps he was really
excited by the prospect of running our still for the first time. Ron
never ran anywhere, if he could help it. Hell, neither did I, but his
excitement was contagious. I started pushing the still closer to the
sink.

Which
wasn't going to happen without a struggle. Thirty pounds of copper
plus eighty pounds of liquid equals, well, a problem.

'Hey,
Ron," I yelled. "I need some help here."

Ron
clomped down the stairs, a coiled yellow extension cord hanging from
his shoulder.

"This'll
takes care of our electrical problem. What do you need?"

"Help
me move the still."

"Sure.
Is it that heavy?"

"Oh,
yeah. Give it a try."

Ron
pushed, I pulled, and the still moved reluctantly.

"Wait
a minute," Ron said. "We're going about this all wrong.
Friction is not our friend. Hold on a sec." Ron ran back
up the basement steps, then returned with a double handful of wooden
dowels.

"We're
going to use these as rollers," he said, laying the dowels in a
path from the still to the sink. "I don't know why I didn't
think of this to begin with."

"Well,
it never occurred to me, either, not that I knew we had rollers.
Maybe our blood sugar is low."

"Doesn't
matter," Ron said. "Let's push."

The
dowels worked like a charm and with only a little effort, we situated
the still near the sink. I quickly attached the intake and outflow
hoses to the condenser while Ron unraveled the extension cord,
plugged it into an outlet, then attached the two heating elements to
the power strip.

There
was a loud pop, a brief flash of sparks from somewhere in the corner,
and the room went pitch black.

"Fuck!"
we said, simultaneously.

"I'm
betting we don't have a flashlight down here, do we?" Ron said.

"I'm
betting you're right. I think I've got one in the bedroom, though."

"Let's
hope so. When you said distilling wasn't as easy as I might think, I
had no idea this kind of shit would happen." Ron stumbled a bit
making his way back to the work bench.

"Well,
it wasn't exactly what I envisioned, either. Dionysus is not smiling
upon us tonight," I said.

"Who?"

"Dionysus.
The Greek god of wine, intoxication, and ritual madness. Guess he's
busy at the party across the street."

"There's
a party across the street?"

"You
didn't notice when you went upstairs? Well, cool your jets there,
son. It's a big biker bash to which we were not invited and
besides, we're working, remember?"

I
worked my way cautiously to the steps and went off to find my
flashlight.

The
party at the anarchists' collective was still going strong; in fact,
it had grown. People were milling about in the street, in the front
yard, in our front yard, and in the neighbors' front yards.
Motorcycles of all shapes and sizes were everywhere, their comings
and goings punctuated by loud bass engine noises I felt as much as
heard. People were having a good time. Sex and drugs and rock and
roll filled the night air. Yeah, I thought. There's our
problem. Dionysus is too busy getting down with his twenty-first
century posse to shower us with blessings, the freak.

"Where
the hell is that flashlight?" Ron's voice came up from the
basement.

"I'm
coming, I'm coming." I stumbled a bit coming down the darkened
steps.

"Well,
it's about time," Ron said. "Where's the breaker box?"

We
searched around for a bit, my tiny flashlight casting a dim, barely
sufficient glow, until we came to a dusty, cobweb-encrusted metal
door in the wall.

"Shit,"
said Ron. "Fuses, not breakers. Old ones." He sighed
deeply. "I don't suppose you know where any fuses are, by
chance?"

"Couldn't
we just jam a penny in there?"

"Besides
the fact that's a sure way to get electrocuted, not to mention start
a house fire, these aren't screw-in fuses. They're older than that."

"So
what do we do?"

"Well,
there's nothing in the fuse box, nothing on the fuse box.
Let's look on the work bench."

Sure
enough, there, in plain sight, was a faded box of old school tube
fuses.

"These
things are ancient. Better unplug the heaters while I stick this in."

I
snickered.

"What?"
Ron said.

"You're
going to stick in in."

"Are
you high?"

"No,
just a little giddy. Everything's unplugged."

There
was a sharp electrical crack, a couple of bluish sparks, and the
lights came back on.

"Well,
that was entertaining," Ron said. "Let's try it with one
heating element."

I
took in a deep breath, inserted the plug, then exhaled when I saw the
heating unit's little orange indicator light come on.

"And
we have ignition."

"Great.
Now what?"

"Now
we watch the temperature, wait for things to boil, turn on the water
to the condenser, and start collecting our alcohol."

"How
long will that take?"

"I
have no idea. Probably a while, since we only have the one heating
element. You got another extension cord somewhere?"

"No,
but if this is going to take a while, I could run down to Walgreen's
or someplace and buy one."

"Might
not be a bad idea."

"Of
course, I just might have to check out that party, too."

I
gave Ron my best look of exasperation, then said, "Go ahead.
This could wind up being an all-night affair anyway. No sense in both
of us being bored."

"I'll
be right back, I promise."

"Yeah,
yeah, yeah. You'll be right back. I've heard that line before. Try
not to to pick up any STDs while you're at it."

"No
STDs. Just an extension cord. Got it."

With
Ron gone the basement was quiet except for the faint din of the party
outside and another noise else I couldn't quite place. Was that
bubbling? Were we at a boil already? I put my hand on the base of the
still and noted warmth and a slight vibration. Okay, something was
going right. The heater was working and the mash was warming up.
Knowing I was going to be disappointed, I checked the thermometer
and, yep, sure enough, we had a long way to go before hitting the
boiling point of alcohol; hell, we hadn't even reached body
temperature. I went upstairs to grab my pen and notebook.

Except
for the motorcycles and a few beat-up old cars, the streets were
empty, the party having moved inside as far as I could tell. No
surprise there; it was getting a bit damp and chilly. Then, too, the
police only patrolled this neighborhood at night and I was sure no
one wearing biker colors, drunk or sober, wanted to tangle with
Richmond's Finest. They had guns and Tasers and weren't afraid to use
them. In fact, if local folklore held true, the police got quite a
kick out of using their Tasers. It was cheap entertainment and I
shuddered at the thought.

I
wonder what Sarah is up to? I thought. I wonder what bikers
and anarchists do at a house party. They probably didn't sit around
sipping brandy and reading Kropotkin in the original Russian. Maybe
they had wild sex orgies and rolled around naked on torn-out pages
from Ronald Reagan's memoirs. Or the Warren Commission report. Who
knows?

I
grabbed an orange juice and went back downstairs, where I was pleased
to note a thin trickle of steam emerging from where the base and the
head joined. Good deal! We're getting somewhere now. I sat on
a kitchen stool at the work bench and made a few notes.

Oh,
sweet Jeebus, "Magic Carpet Ride" as interpreted by the
entire membership of the International Plumbers' Union while drunk.
And on acid. In the midst of an epileptic seizure. I nearly fell out
of bed from the godawful noise. Why hadn't giant glowing beach towel
Elvis protected me? And who the hell was messing with the pipes? And
worse, why did my bedside alarm clock say eight a. m.?

"Rise
and shine, little buddy," Ron shouted from the bathroom, his
voice only slightly muffled by toothpaste. "Time to rub the
sleep out of your eyes and greet the new day!"

"Meh.
You're going to squander the best part of the day. We've got things
to do and places to go. Stuff to move and stuff to buy."

Slowly,
painfully I attempted to focus my eyes and roll out of bed. "You
know," I said, a bit blearily, "when normal people don't
have to work they like to sleep in. Late."

"One,"
Ron said as he threw open my door, "we're not normal people and
we never will be. Two, we are working, or rather, we will
be once you get up and put some clothes on."

"Are
you on meth or something? You're awfully chipper for a guy who spent
yesterday driving around all over the state."

"Exciting
times ahead, John! A new day, new beginnings, new projects, we've got
to get cracking if we're going to get ahead of the game. Oh, and
there's coffee and Krispy Kreme doughnuts in the kitchen."

"Deities.
My very own short duration personal saviors with whom I will be
sharing a very caffeinated and very sugar-laden communion as soon as
I can find my pants."

"Well,
okay then."

"So
are we moving your stuff this morning?" I said.

"Actually,
there's good news and bad news. Mostly good news for you and some bad
news for me."

"How
so?

"Well,
there's not a lot of my stuff to move, courtesy of the Girlfriend
From Hell. Apparently, she went on a rampage after I called her,
burned most of my stuff in a backyard bonfire, and now all I've got
are a couple of suitcases, a trunk, that stained mattress we were
using as a doggie bed, and my computer stuff. I got lucky, I suppose,
but some of it is kind of smoky, so heads up. I did manage to rescue,
well, you know."

"Oh,
Christ," I said. "The layout."

"Yeah,
the layout."

Have
I mentioned that Ron is a model railroad buff? Yeah, HO scale all the
way. He got into it in his early teens and over the years has amassed
a huge, and I mean huge, collection of brass locomotives worth
thousands of dollars along with rolling stock, miles of track, tons
of scenery, and who knows how many itty-bitty metal figures. When he
got into model construction, he built what amounted to a small city's
worth of structures complete with weathering, advertisements,
graffitti, electric lighting, myriads of geeky goodness. It's his
pride, his joy, and his singular obsession-- excluding inappropriate
women-- an entire world on a nine by twelve foot table.

"Where
is it now?" I asked.

"You
know the front room across from the living room slash library?"

"What
I assumed was the dining room? Yeah."

"It's
has been officially commandeered and designated the Train Room."

"Oh.
Okay. I've never been one for formal dinners, anyway," I said.
"I'm more into microwave burritos and paper plates. Where's all
the stuff now?"

"It's
here. Downstairs. My sister's husband helped me load it into his
truck and those four guys from across the street helped me get it
into the house."

"Oh,
yeah? Was Sarah with them?"

"No,
unfortunately, Ron said with a slight leer. "She's pretty hot in
a goth trash sort of way. Oh, who am I kidding? Given the chance, I'd
hit that so hard whoever pulled me out would be the rightful king of
all England."

"Uh..."

"And
can you imagine a threesome with her and Tara? Oh, man! What do you
want to bet they both have piercings in places you wouldn't expect?"

"Changing
the subject," I said. "What, exactly, are we doing today if
we're not moving you in?"

"I'm
thinking it's time we check out The Little Old Winemaker and spend a
little money."

"Color
me confused, but who do we know that makes wine? Hell, who do we know
that drinks wine, unless it's Boone's Farm? Is this person a
consultant or something?"

"The
Little Old Winemaker is not a person, it's this funky store in
Lakeside that sells beer and winemaking supplies. The guy in
Goochland was telling me about it, said it was your one-stop shopping
source for all things booze-related."

"What,
the guy with the still?"

"The
very one. He's done it all: cider, beer, wine; in fact, he had such
good luck with wine he wanted to branch out into brandy. He even had
wooden casks for aging. You know, we might want to think about that
at some point."

"Uh,
don't count your barrels just yet. We've got a lot of things to do
before we can even think of trying out our still."

I
got my notebook, filled a big travel mug with coffee, and grabbed a
couple of doughnuts Okay, three doughnuts, but it was early and my
blood sugar and caffeine levels were nowhere near optimum.

When Ron said the place was "funky,"
he wasn't exaggerating. Set back in a little strip mall parallel to
Lakeside Drive, The Little Old Winemaker was completely at odds with
its surroundings. It was as if a tiny piece of 19th
Century rural Bavaria had been magically transported to Richmond and
plopped down to live placidly amid the appliance stores, service
stations, soul food eateries, and 7-11s. Funky, too, were the smells
we encountered as soon as we passed through the door: yeasty bread,
dusty grains, a faint whiff of wood smoke, a hint of ripe apples... I
was reminded of when I used to visit my grandfather's tobacco farm as
a child and play in the hay loft. The walls were darkened wood and
covered in advertising posters for obscure beers, exotic wines, and
vineyards local and foreign. Well-dressed, soft-spoken customers
browsed the aisles and shelves.

It was charming.

"So what are we looking for,"
Ron asked.

"Well, yeast for one, a couple of
ten gallon fermenters, which are just glorified food grade plastic
buckets, unless you want to go the stainless or copper route."

"One way valves. When we start
fermenting stuff, we want a way to keep out the airborne nasties
while venting all the carbon dioxide we'll be making."

"This is getting complicated,"
Ron said.

"I warned you. And we're going to
need cheesecloth for filtering, some kind of sanitizing agent for the
buckets, some plastic tubing, oh, and a decent grade hydrometer. Then
there's corn, malted barley, rye, rye malt..."

"Enough. Let's start shopping,"
Ron sighed.

The store's layout was a little
confusing, but the sales associate was busy briefing this
nice-looking gay couple on the finer points of home-aging sherry and
port, so Ron and I fumbled around for a bit before finding all the
stuff we needed. That was fine as far as I was concerned, since even
a cursory glance would tell any astute home brewer exactly what we
were planning on doing. Let's be clear: home distilling is illegal.
Highly illegal. The Feds don't care if it's a little or a lot;
if you're running a still to make alcohol for human consumption,
regardless of the quantity and regardless of whether you drink it or
sell it or give it away, you're breaking several state and federal
laws and can wind up in a dank, dark prison cell for a very long
time. Someday the laws may change, just as they did for wine- and
beer-making, but someday is not today. I was a little nervous.

We hauled our stuff over to the main
counter.

"Okay," said the clerk. "What
have we got here?" He began muttering to himself as he tallied
up our purchases, then said, "You know this is a Tralles
hydrometer, right?"

"What's a Tralles hydrometer?"
Ron asked

The clerk looked at Ron for a second.
"You use a Tralles hydrometer to figure out the alcoholic
content of a liquid based on its specific gravity. You take pre- and
post-fermentation readings and from that you can calculate..."
His voice trailed off when he saw the expression on my face.

"You're not..." the clerk
said.

I stood there open-mouthed.

The clerk's voice dropped to a whisper.
"Because I don't want to know if you are."

I stood there at a loss for words.

"Let's speak hypothetically for a
moment," he said, glancing to his left and right. "Purely
hypothetically."

"Okay."

"If someone, not you two, but
someone, wanted to, oh, let's say, ferment a large volume of material
really fast, he might want something a little more powerful than
champagne yeast."

"Okay."

"He might want a variety of what
is called a turbo yeast. It's fast, it's resistant to alcohol, which
means it can survive when the concentration is high and make more
alcohol, and most importantly, it comes complete with a slew of
additional nutrients and pH adjusters so as to make futzing with it
significantly trivial. It can survive. It can kick ass. You, uh, he
just adds the yeast at the right moment and at the right temperature
and lets it do it's thing."

"Okay."

"But it's tricky for
wine-making. It brings things to a ferment really fast
and it generates a lot of alcohol. A lot. A wine-maker could,
entirely by accident, ruin his otherwise perfectly good wine
by turning it into something only useful if he were interested in
distilling it, which he would not be, in which case the
winemaker would not have wine. That would be sad. You
understand?"

"Okay." I smiled a little.

"A wine-maker would have to
be extremely careful with a turbo yeast or he's going to wind
up with a high-proof wine that would be completely undrinkable
as it was. It would be beyond insolent and ill-mannered; it
would be a pugnacious bully. One would be overwhelmed by the
alcohol burn. And that's not what one looks for in a
good wine. Excuse me for a moment."

The clerk disappeared behind a curtain
then returned holding a couple of test tubes sealed with black
plastic screw caps. Inside them was a noxious-looking brown slurry.

"This is a new product, a strain
called THX-1138 from the W. A. Sallee labs in Chicago. It's for
experimental wine-making purposes only, though it may
possibly have other uses. You may also find it...
amusing." The clerk smiled and handed me some stapled papers.
"And these are the instructions. They reiterate what I said
about it being tricky for wine-making. Be sure to read them
carefully."

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

"Ooo. Aah. Ohh." I said
sarcastically. "A bunch of cardboard boxes and a big-ass
something or other under a moving pad. I swoon. I plotz."

"You will in a minute," Ron
said. "Look behind the curtain."

I
wasn't sure I wanted to touch the filthy, smelly quilt covering the
whatever it was, but sometimes you just have to roll up your sleeves,
say what the fuck, and go for it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I
lifted a convenient corner.

The
setting sun glinted gloriously off the shiniest conglomeration of
metalwork I had ever seen.

"Sweet
Jesus, it's beautiful," I said, slowly pulling off the cover.
"That's a work of art. It's functional sculpture at its finest.
It's glowing and shiny and curvaceous and sexy and I want to marry
it. Where the hell did you find it?"

"Four
words to know and live by: 'Craigslist is our friend.' Some guy out
in Goochland bought it and then had second thoughts or something.
That, or his wife raised hell when she saw the price tag. Anyway, he
put it up for sale at about half of its original cost and I haggled
him down a little more by waving some cash under his nose."

"It's...
it's... beautiful. I'm afraid to touch it."

"Well,
cover it up. No sense in advertising to the neighborhood that we've
got a still. That's just asking for trouble. We'll move it in after
the sun sets, safe from prying eyes."

"Actually"
I said, looking around, "we should move it in now. In these
parts, if you leave something of any value lying around unsecured
it's considered a donation to the community. Copper is a big ticket
item in distressed neighborhoods, which is why you'll never find
electrical wiring in an empty house."

Ron
scanned the anarchists' collective across the street and said, "I
see what you mean. Okay, let's move it."

"What's
in all the other boxes?"

"Oh,
well the big one houses the still condenser assembly and the others?
Well, take a look."

Ron
reached into his pocket, pulled out a Swiss Army knife, slit the tape
on one of the boxes, and uncovered a dozen one liter Florence flasks.

"Aren't
they cool?" Ron said.

"Well,
yeah, I suppose, but what do you want with a bunch of round-bottomed
flasks, unless..."

"Exactly!
You said Ball Mason jars were trite and passé and, let's face it,
with the exception of Crystal Head Vodka, most liquor bottles are not
particularly exciting, so when I saw these on Craigslist..."

"You
bought a shitload."

"I
bought a shitload. A double shitload. About five hundred of them, to
be exact. For cash, so there's no paper trail, and at a huge
discount. Incidentally, there are more where these came from in case
we should need them." Ron was grinning from ear to ear. "I
could have gotten a bunch of old-school ceramic jugs, but they all
had labels and needed some serious cleaning, so I figured that was
just too much damn work. These things, on the other hand, are almost
sterile and laboratory-ready."

"I've
got to admit, I think you're on to something. Then again, we're not
going to have anything to put in them for at least a couple of weeks
and maybe longer if things don't go well. There are about ten
thousand details we've got to consider." The immensity of what
we were about to do swept over me and it must have shown on my face.

"And
there go the negative waves again. You need to embrace the power of
positive thinking or you're going to become an old man before your
time. Visualize. Actualize. Synthesize."

"Yeah,
and in the meantime I'm tired as shit and we've still got a bunch of
boxes and one highly illegal still to move."

"So
let's get cracking," Ron said.

To
my surprise, we got everything into the basement with only a minimum
of trouble. The boxes of flasks were easy; as far as weight was
concerned they were inconsequential. The main body of the still, on
the other hand, though not particularly heavy, was big, bulky,
slippery, and awkward as hell to move, but after only a couple of
sphincter-clenching moments when it didn't look as though it would
fit through the door, we got it down the stairs and into position.

"Look
at it," Ron said. "That's our future gleaming there."

"That
was almost poetic, ya big lug," I said. "Only, let's hope
our future doesn't involve prison cells and big bad men in need of
butt buddies. I'm fragile." I thought for a moment then looked
at Ron. "Now what?"

"A
couple of things. I've got to get the pick-up back to my sister's
husband and I'm thinking we'd better get a padlock for the basement
door just in case."

"Based
on what I've seen, our landlord is not apt to wander anywhere on
foot."

"I'm
still going to pick one up on the way back. You need anything?"

I
stared at the still shining in the center of our basement floor and
thought for a moment. What did I need? The name of a good
lawyer? Just... in case? A copy of Virginia's legal code? A bottle of
Valium? Zen mind? A nap?

"Nah,
I'm good. I'm going to go upstairs, set up my bedroom, then sleep for
about a hundred years."

I
could hear a faint music and a police siren in the distance. A couple
of neighborhood dogs barked half-heartedly, then all was silence as a
profound sense of melancholy overcame me.

"Well,
buddy," I addressed the still. "It's just you and me. I
suppose we're going to become close friends, eventually, but right
now I'm just a bit overwhelmed by everything."

The
house creaked in response.

"I
suppose if Ron is right and there really is a market for artisanal
booze, then all this is going to be the start of an exciting new
venture with us right smack on the cutting edge, and let's be honest,
I've never been on the cutting edge of much of anything ever. I
should be thrilled as all get-out."

The
still said nothing.

"But
let me tell you something: I'm not. I'm not fond of unpredictability
and this little project is about as unpredictable as anything I've
ever encountered. And yeah, maybe Jobs and Wozniak started out in a
garage, but I bet they had access to working plumbing. I have no idea
what's going to happen the first time I flush the toilet in this
place. Maybe a sewage apocalypse. Or worse."

The
dogs started barking again, then quieted.

"I'm
broke, my girlfriend is long gone, I don't have any family to speak
of and no close friends, except for Ron, and here I am starting a new
life on the wrong side of town in one of the world's older and
shadier professions. 'John Griggs, potential urban moonshiner.'
Sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit."

Silence.

"On
the other hand, I'll be my own boss and at least have the chance of
making some money without having to say 'you want fries with that?'"

More
silence.

"Oh,
well. It's getting late and as much as I hate to leave you alone on
your first night here, I'm exhausted. See ya in the morning." I
trudged up the stairs feeling more tired than I'd felt in years.

The
bedroom was in total disarray, though the Four Stooges had been kind
enough to assemble my bed, even to the point of making a half-assed
attempt at fitting it with sheets and blankets, which was a little
creepy now that I thought about it. Unfortunately, they had then
piled it high with clothes, boxes of books, a couple of suitcases,
and my two nightstands. I appreciated the effort, I did, but
really... the dresser was facing backwards, its drawers against the
wall, and my writing desk was standing on end in front of the closet.
An errant box of dishes peeked out at me from under the bed. The
floor was covered in bits of cardboard and packing tape, my lamps
were nowhere in sight, and the whole scene was more than a little
stark, gloomy, and depressing, lit as it was by a single bare bulb in
the ceiling.

"Relax,
man," said Sarah, leaning against the door frame. "The
serial killers hang out on Southside this time of night. You're
reasonably safe here, though if I were you I'd start locking my front
door. Otherwise, you'll attract an unsavory element... like me."

"You
scared the shit out of me."

Sarah
did an exaggerated neck-craning thing. "I dunno... your floor
and pants look pretty shit-free to me, but either way, you're still
going to need curtains."

"I...
Curtains? What are you talking about?"

"Well,
whether you know it or not, right now you're putting on a show for
the whole neighborhood. The way things are lit, you've got a kind of
shadow puppet thing going on." Sarah started poking through some
boxes. "Do you even have curtains?"

"Probably
not. My girlfriend took care of that kind of stuff, uh, back when I
had a girlfriend. She was the one with the domesticity gene. I'm more
of a patterned sheets in the window kind of guy."

"Well,
I think we can do better than that." Sarah pulled out a huge
black and orange beach towel emblazoned with a young, svelte Elvis
somebody had given me as a gag gift many years ago.

"Yeah,
this will do nicely," Sarah said. "Nothing like sleeping
peacefully while being watched over by a glowing King. She moved one
of my nightstands, climbed on top, pulled a tack hammer and some
nails out of her back pocket, and fastened the towel into place.

"You
came prepared."

"Told
you you were putting on a show. Moe was concerned you were going to
undress and start wagging your dick around or something, so I figured
I'd better take action before he had a stroke. He comes across as
homophobic, but really, he's so deep in the closet that he's finding
Christmas presents."

"That
was entirely too much information."

"Wasn't
it, though? Cool platform bed, by the way."

"Thanks.
I picked it up at La Difference a couple of years ago. It's
the only decent piece of furniture I own. The rest is thrift shop
chic."

Sarah
held out her hand and waited until I took it to help her down from
the nightstand. I noted the faint aroma of sandalwood. "Yeah,
Curly liked it because there are so many places to attach ropes. He's
got a mild bondage fetish, loves to be tied down. Funny how so many
otherwise macho men like to be the passive ones in bed."

"Again,
too much information."

"Then
you definitely don't want to know how many piercings he's got where."

"Yeah,
I'll pass on that."

"Thought
you might. Want a hand getting your bedroom organized?"

"Yeah,
that would be great."

With
Sarah orchestrating, it took us all of half an hour to get the place
into some semblance of order.

"Damn,"
I said, surveying the results. "I could live here."

Sarah
looked around. "It's a little too multi-purpose for my tastes,
what with the desk and computer and printer and all, but get rid of
that shit, add some mood lighting, a canopy, maybe a bar and small
refrigerator, and yeah, you've got yourself a fuck pad."

"Uh-huh,"
was all I could say.

She
threw herself on the mattress exposing a great deal of bare abdomen
and what looked to be a diamond navel ring. "Oh, yeah, baby,"
she said. "That's memory foam. Nice stuff. I take it
back; this is a fuck pad. And I would know."

"Uh,
I'll take your word for it."

"Oh,
you won't have to do that. She shot me a huge grin. "But it's
late and I've got a pirate radio station to get on the air so, we'll
pick this up tomorrow. Later, dude!"

And
with that, Sarah was off, leaving me to wonder what just happened.

Monday, November 5, 2012

I hate moving. Really, really hate it.
It's right up there with my hatred of Hitler and Stalin, cancer and
world hunger, military actions and people who hog the passing lane on
the Interstate, which is why I do it as little as possible. Part of
the problem is I have too much stuff, books mostly, which translates
to dozens and dozens of boxes to be packed, sealed, lifted,
transported, lifted again, opened, unpacked, and arranged in some
semblance of order. That's the ideal; what usually happens is I
become overwhelmed, give up, and just dump them in huge piles all
around whatever living space I happen to be occupying. My poor
ex-girlfriend waged a running battle with books in the bathroom since
one of my favorite places to read is in the tub.

"Sometimes I think you care more
about these damned books than you do about me," she used to say.
Well, scream would be a more accurate description. "Can't you at
least get rid of the ones you've read? Why do you have to keep them
for so long?"

Because. I'd rather drown kittens than
lose a book.

She didn't understand. Margaret was not
a reader. Fashion magazines, sure. Glamour, People,
Us, things like that, check. All of them instantly
forgettable; all of them entirely disposable. But unless by chance
she was reading the current self-help tome du jour, and that
only happened maybe once every two years, she never touched a book
unless it was to move mine out of her way. "There's no room to
sleep on the bed! Or sit! Or walk, for God's sake! What the hell? The
sofa is not a bookshelf. Why is Norman Spinrad in the bathroom sink?"
She couldn't wrap her head around the idea that books are my friends,
my children. Sure, some of them are bastard children, misshapen and
malformed, but I love them none the less.

In all fairness, she was somewhat
justified in her resentment. I had-- I have-- books
everywhere. Stacked on shelves, stacked in front of shelves, on my
desk, on her desk, on the kitchen counter, in the kitchen
cabinets, scattered across the dining room table, the bathroom, the
bedroom; virtually every horizontal surface was (and is) a potential
(and actual) book depository. On the other hand, love me, love my
books. Margaret chose neither.

Here's a confession for you, to my
shame: under my bed there's a huge trunk filled with yellowing
paperbacks I haven't opened since the late 'Eighties, but in no way
am I willing to get rid of any of them. The fear is I might want to
consult one of them someday at, say, three in the morning, when the
bookstores and library are closed and in my mind that would be
inconvenient at the least, mindbogglingly annoying at the worst. I do
not suffer either well. Also, in this post-literate age I live in
constant fear of Fahrenheit 451 becoming a reality. This
should tell you the extent of my obsession.

Which is one of the reasons I broke
down and got myself a Kindle. Three thousand books at my fingertips
occupying less than the space of your average self-published poetry
chapbook, plus the ability to purchase books 24/7/365 and store as
many on my hard drive as memory will hold; it's online crack for
bibliophiles.

Yeah, my name is John, I'm powerless
over books, and my life and that of those around me have become
unmanageable.

Anyway, the point of all this is I hate
to move and it's mostly because of the books. Mostly. The other
annoying thing is every time I have to move I have to do it by myself
and that just plain sucks.

Okay, confession two: I have a low
threshold for boredom and moving things from one place to another is
boring. And tiring. And sweaty. And just plain no fun. Yeah, beneath
my aging exterior beats the heart of a restless thirteen year old
without access to television.

And on this day in particular, a
singularly irritated thirteen year old.

Where the hell was Ron? Ron knows how
much I hate to move and I'd been counting on him to help out, but he
was nowhere to be found, leaving me with a U-Haul full of weighty
boxes and rickety thrift store furniture.

"Hey! You must be the new guy."

I turned around to see a punk rock
slash wet dream by way of Goth culture. She was tall and lanky with a
Bettie Page haircut, black Doc Marten's, strategically torn skinny
jeans, a ripped black camisole with plunging neckline, ghostly pale
make-up with heavy eye shadow, and a biker jacket that looked as if
it had been torn off a dying Hell's Angel.

"Yeah, I guess I am. And you..."

"And you look like you could use a
little help."

"Man, that is the understatement
of the decade."I said. "My partner was supposed to be here
an hour ago, but I guess he had better things to do."

"Partner?" She gave me a
lascivious wink.

"Oh, it's not what you think.
We're strictly hetero, 'not that there's anything wrong with that,'"
I said in my best Seinfeld voice."He's kind of my business
partner when he's not pulling a disappearing act."

"What business?" She peered
around to see inside the U-Haul.

"Uh, well, I suppose I'm not at
liberty to discuss that at present," I said.

"A start-up or something? Computer
programming? Data mining? Amateur porn production? I've got a friend
who'll do amazing things on camera with a can of Betty Crocker
frosting and some whipped cream. And she'll work cheap."

"Uh..."

"You're not in the recreational
pharmaceutical industry, by chance?" Sarah shot me a huge grin.

"Good God, no! Why would you think
that?" My heart skipped a beat.

"Only that there are a limited
number of reasons why people choose to live in this neighborhood
willingly and that's one of them, but not to worry. It would be
definitely cool if you were."

"Hell, yeah! Oh, hell yeah!
Everybody in this neighborhood knows about 'em. They're kind of a
thing at parties. The woman who lived here before you used to make a
kind of kick-ass wine out of them and give it away to whoever asked."

"Really?"

"Really! Oh, I'm Sarah, by the
way. Sarah Sparks. I run a kind of anarchists' collective across the
street when I'm not pulling espressos for Instagram addicted hipsters
on Cary Street." Sarah pointed to a somewhat dilapidated house
with four gargantuan Harley-Davidsons in the front yard.

"A sweaty moving man, too, it
appears. But that's okay; I like 'em sweaty. You want some help with
all those boxes?"

I hesitated before saying anything.
Sarah didn't look like the weight lifting type, but she did
look like the punch you in the face type if I pointed that out."Well,
yeah, that would be great, but are you sure you have the, uh, time?"

Sarah put her fingers to her lips and
let out with a bloodcurdling, earsplitting whistle. A moment later
four huge, hulking guys in dirty jeans, faded leathers, and jailhouse
tattoos emerged from the house across the street and came running
over toward us.

"Boxes," she said, pointing
to the U-Haul. "Inside. Now."

Without a word, the guys immediately
started off-loading the boxes and furniture and hauling them into the
house, the faint smell of marijuana and malt liquor following in
their wake.

"Doesn't matter. They're all four
of them big and dumb and pretty much interchangeable."

"And handy," I said. "No
household should be without one."

Sarah laughed. "Damn straight! And
they're pretty low maintenance to boot, for the most part. Just fuel
'em, feed 'em, and fuck 'em as necessary. The rest takes care of
itself. And as an added bonus, they come with their own reefer and
beer."

I didn't quite know how to respond.
Miss Manners doesn't cover conversations like this one; then again,
Miss Manners had probably never encountered an anarchists'
collective. Hell, I've never encountered an anarchists'
collective, much less one run by Joan Jett's evil twin, but I wasn't
about to complain. The U-Haul was being emptied at blinding speed.

"Where do you want the boxes
labeled 'books?'" a voice boomed from the apartment.

"You got pizza? Or beer?"
another voice boomed.

"We've got beer, you
knucklehead. What we need is pizza," a third voice boomed.

"You morons gonna help with these
books?"

"Now you see why I call 'em 'The
Stooges.'" Sarah shot me another huge grin. "They can read
and converse in full sentences, too. And they play a pretty mean game
of D & D, when they're in the mood, except they all want to be
half-orc fighters with dragon scale armor."

"What do they do when they're not
in the mood?" I asked.

"You're better off not knowing and
we'd better go in and supervise before they find your liquor supply.
Otherwise, you'll get a live demonstration."

The Three Stooges (four, if you count
Shemp) were nothing if not energetic. They had my stuff moved
astoundingly fast, wrangling even the heaviest boxes with an ease and
grace that reminded me of ballet, if there were such a thing as two
hundred and eighty pound ballet dancers. Sarah and I didn't have to
lift a finger, except once to dial the nearest pizza delivery joint.

All six of us were sitting on the front
porch, finishing off the pizza crusts and drinking lukewarm beer
while the Stooges described their latest Ravenloft campaign in
excruciating detail, when Ron the Nerd finally made his appearance.

"Jesus God, John," Ron said,
as he exited a pick-up truck that had seen better days. "Who are
your friends?"

"Our new neighbors. Come and say
'hi,'" I said. As Ron mounted the porch, I couldn't resist
whispering, "And don't show any fear. They can smell it. It'll
make them go berserk."

Ron actually gulped as I went through
the Stooge introductions, grimacing as he shook each powerful hand in
turn.

"Down,
Curly. Up, Ron," Sarah said when she noticed Ron's attention was
focused on her cleavage.

"Oh,
uh, "Ron stammered. "I was just admiring your tattoo."

"That's
Neptune, King of the Seven Seas. And of my boobs. That's Curly, king
of shallow graves in desolate wooded areas."

An
awkward silence followed, but to his credit, Ron at least had the
decency to blush. "Gotcha. No offense intended."

"Nah,
I kid. Look at them all you want. I was just yanking your chain."
Sarah laughed. "I'm kind of proud of the twins. Grew 'em
myself."

"Okay,
now that we're all friends again, where the hell have you
been? You do remember we were supposed to move in today, right?"
I said.

"I
didn't forget, but man oh, man, something came up that you're never
going to believe! Uh, could we talk privately for a moment?"

"Okay,
guys," Sarah said to the Stooges. "That's our cue to leave.
These boys have business to discuss and I'm in the mood for a little
Risk.
Nothing like some world domination to round out an afternoon."